Dr. James Wan, a physician from Georgia, has confessed to using Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) in a sinister plot on the dark web to hire a hitman to kill his girlfriend.

What Happened: As per Decrypt, Wan utilized Bitcoin, banking on its anonymity, to cloak his murder-for-hire scheme. The plan involved making his girlfriend’s death appear as a carjacking accident. He now awaits his sentence in a federal court in January 2024.

The U.S. Department of Justice reveals that Wan embarked on this dark web journey in April 2022. He gave detailed information about his girlfriend, from her Facebook profile to her vehicle’s specifics, to hire a hitman. The agreement was to be sealed with multiple Bitcoin payments, tallying to approximately $24,200. However, due to a cryptocurrency wallet address error, Wan had to resend a payment.

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Despite careful planning, the plot was foiled. Wan’s first attempt to transfer a 50% down payment, around $8,000 in Bitcoin, to an escrow wallet was unsuccessful due to an incorrect wallet address. He then made another $8,000 Bitcoin transfer to ensure the escrow account had ample funds for the contract to be fulfilled.

As Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, put it, “Despite his cowardly concealment on the dark web, Wan’s cold-hearted murderous plot was averted due to the exceptional work of our team. He will now face the full consequences of the criminal justice system.”

Alarmingly, this is not the first case of Bitcoin being used for hitman hire. Prior instances have included payments for double homicide and assaults, highlighting a worrying pattern of cryptocurrency misuse.

Why It Matters: The use of Bitcoin in illicit activities is not new. According to reports from Benzinga, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has previously taken legal action to reclaim millions of dollars in Bitcoin stolen by a teenage hacker.

Cryptocurrency-related crime has seen a significant surge over the past four years, as revealed by another Benzinga report, prompting the DOJ to strengthen its crackdown on illegal activities in the digital asset sector, particularly targeting cryptocurrency exchanges and services that obscure transaction history.

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